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Keith Warner’s iconic production sets the stage for Wagner’s epic tale of family and power. Antonio Pappano conducts an outstanding cast including Nina Stemme, John Lundgren, Sarah Connolly, Emily Magee, Stuart Skelton and Ain Angerin in Keith Warner’s ‘outstanding staging’ (Evening Standard) of Die Walküre. Die Walküre is the second opera in Richard Wagner’s four-opera-cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. It is the most performed work in the cycle, loved and admired for its nuanced and intelligent exploration of complex family entanglements through music of astonishing emotive power. This includes the glorious music for the incestuous lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Wotan’s passionate farewell to his beloved daughter Brünnhilde.

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REVIEW:

This performance of Die Walküre came as part of a Ring cycle at the ROH running from September 26 to November 2, 2018. The four operas were generally well received and if I can judge their quality from this one alone I can say I'm certainly not surprised by their positive reception. In the age of opera studio recordings, singers and musicians could do multiple retakes over many days, but now in the era of video, live efforts such as this one are usually culled from just a few performances. The dates given in the album booklet here indicate this one is derived from just two, which is all the more remarkable, suggesting the singers, pit musicians and conductor were truly in their element in this performance and thus likely throughout the entire cycle. But of course, there is another aspect to every opera on video—the production, what you see on stage. So, the issue is, this Die Walküre will have to be an exceedingly strong one in just about every respect to succeed in the marketplace, owing to the plentiful competition, which I'll deal with shortly. Let me start with the singers here.

Nine Stemme is probably the finest soprano to portray Brünnhilde that I've ever encountered on video. She doesn't have a weak or prosaic moment in this opera. John Lundgren as Wotan is also excellent: full-voiced and utterly immersed in his character—becoming Wotan, in fact—he is splendid, coming across as domineering and adamant, cold and vengeful, but struggling still in his attempts to deny all emotion. He is brilliant throughout the opera actually, and like Stemme, divulges nothing even tinged of mediocrity in either his singing or acting skills. Stuart Skelton as Siegmund is also extremely convincing, capturing the essence of his character as well, his singing and dramatic abilities consistently impressive. Emily Magee catches fire in the latter third or so of Act II and continues in the same spirited vein in the last act, really showing total involvement and singing her heart out, perhaps inspired to rival the imposing stage presence of Nina Stemme. Ain Anger as Hunding is more than adequate, as is Sarah Connolly in the role of Fricka. I'm not sure that any recording tops this cast in the competition from the video realm, though there are of course some great performances on older recordings in LP and CD formats.

Antonio Pappano generally employs somewhat brisk tempos and seems to grasp fully the emotional trajectory of each scene in his well-conceived and imaginative phrasing of the score. The ROH Orchestra respond with great spirit in their performance and also strike you as fully connected to this opera's strange but compelling world. There is much flair to their account of the Ride of the Valkyries' music but they also deliver the more subtle moments in the score in the same committed manner.

As for the staging aspects of this Keith Warner production, they are quite effective for the most part, though some Wagner traditionalists will likely object to certain liberties taken in this account. I found Warner's take on this opera generally quite fine though, not a radical rethinking of the story's events and characters. The costuming is a mixture of tattered medieval and casual modern, though Fricka's regal dress is an exception in the former category. The sets typically seem to convey symbolism, often in an inscrutable way.

It must be said that some aspects of this production don't go so well. The Ride of the Valkyries scene to open Act III is a bit awkward in execution, at least in the out of sync choreography of the eight warriors as they wave their horse skeletons in the air and traipse about the stage. Their singing is fine though, and their sense of drama quite good. In the background the wall serves as a screen which shows black and white filmed scenes of a sword battle and horses charging. Though brief, these film clips don't really enhance the happenings on center stage, but seem rather inconsequential instead. The special effects in the opera are mostly okay, not of outstanding quality. Still, while some visual effects aren't the product of some bold new technique, they often succeed quite impressively, like the jets of fire from above and to the side of center stage in the Magic Fire Music scene at the end.

The sound reproduction is excellent, as is the picture clarity and camera work. There are four short bonus features on the second DVD: the first three feature commentary by cast members, conductor Pappano, Keith Warner, the repetiteur and orchestra members; and the fourth contains the cast gallery.

What's my recommendation then in this crowded field? This new Pappano-led effort is truly superb, but so is the recent one by Thielemann. To muddy the waters further, the 2010 Barenboim is another recording I would never want to part with and for that matter, his highly praised earlier recording featured the excellent Harry Kupfer production. Any one of these four would probably do, but I must get to a verdict here. Without much hesitation I would now choose, especially for the singing, this new Die Walküre by Pappano on Opus Arte. As mentioned earlier, Wagner traditionalists might find some aspects of the production objectionable, but the whole package is immensely satisfying. A tremendous performance!

– MusicWeb International (Robert Cummings)

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Before starting to work at Nabucodonosor, which will later become his iconic Nabucco, Giuseppe Verdi was on the verge of abandoning music, discouraged as he was by the flop of his second opera. He then received a libretto by Temistocle Solera almost by chance, as it was destined to another composer. Verdi was very reluctant to put himself to work, but later he referred that one night he “threw the manuscript on the table […]. the booklet opened: unwillingly, my eyes were drawn to the page that was before them and on these verses: ‘Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate’”. So he started focusing on the task and “one day one verse, the next day another verse, a note and a phrase at a time, […] little by little the opera was composed”. The rest is history. Nabucodonosor was a triumph, the public of La Scala, on the night of 9th March 1842, repaid him with an unprecedented success hailing all the numbers of the opera with warm ovations and paying a special tribute to the chorus Va’, pensiero, sull’ali dorate, which in Italy has since become a sort of second national anthem. The reasons of such a success were that the opera possessed such force in itself, such simplicity and smoothness of style that made it the perfect example of tragic opera. This production has been filmed at the 2019 Festival Verdi in Parma. It’s a very powerful and engaging creative project by 2018 Abbiati prize winner duo Ricci/Forte. The most striking feature of this staging is that the action takes place in 2046 on a military ship, which reminds us of an Ark. This performance portrays a dystopic society where we can find many references to real contemporary events. Nabucco is turned into an oppressive dictator who is obsessed with his own image. The Hebrew slaves are portrayed as refugees wearing life vests, while on the ship deck various screens are used to display the regime’s propaganda.

It's one of Wiener Staatsoper's most outstanding opera productions for children: Cinderella - Viennese version for children by Alma Deutscher, the musical prodigy of our times. Based on the popular fairy tale, Deutscher tells a modern version of the story, combining humor, poetry and the magic of theatre. Alma Deutscher began composing Cinderella, her favorite fairy tale, at the age of eight. However, she does not directly follow the Brothers Grimm original, as music plays a central role in her version. Cinderella is a young composer whom her stepmother and stepsisters envy because of her talent and demote to working as a music copyist. The prince is a poet who finds Cinderella through their common love of art.

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Ottorino Respighi’s La bella dormente nel bosco (‘The Sleeping Beauty’) was originally commissioned by the renowned puppeteer Vittoria Podrecca. The revised version we hear today preserves much of the kaleidoscopic approach and magnified characters and emotions of that original; now enhanced by the composer’s matchless orchestration. This famous story in which the Princess pricks her finger on a spindle and sleeps for centuries until kissed by her Prince is given a magical atmosphere through director Leo Muscato’s colorful staging, and the superb cast of this Teatro Lirico di Cagliari production truly inhabits an enchanted realm.

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REVIEW:

Ottorino Respighi’s La bella dormente nel bosco (‘The Sleeping Beauty’) was originally commissioned by the renowned puppeteer Vittoria Podrecca. The revised version we hear today preserves much of the kaleidoscopic approach and magnified characters and emotions of that original; now enhanced by the composer’s matchless orchestration. This famous story in which the Princess pricks her finger on a spindle and sleeps for centuries until kissed by her Prince is given a magical atmosphere through director Leo Muscato’s colorful staging, and the superb cast of this Teatro Lirico di Cagliari production truly inhabits an enchanted realm.

– Gramophone

This new release is an in-depth portrait of dance superstar Natalia Osipova directed by BAFTA winning filmmaker Gerry Fox. Force of Nature Natalia follows a season in the life dance superstar Natalia Osipova. With unique access to Natalia's personal archive, we follow her preparations for a fifth season as a principal of the Royal Ballet as she continues to champion contemporary dance with some of the world's greatest choreographers. We watch the rehearsal process of new ballet Mother by Arthur Pita, a new commission with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and the Royal Ballet's legendary production of La Bayadere directed by Natalia Makarova. Natalia opens up about her life and history, her childhood in Russia, her time with American Ballet Theatre and her journey to the Opera House. It is an unparalleled opportunity to get up close and personal with the leading ballerina of our generation and understand why critics and audiences all over the world call her a force of nature of the dance world.

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Premiered on May 21st, 1892 at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, Pagliacci was immediately a huge success, and today it’s Leoncavallo’s most represented operas as “Vesti la giubba” is perhaps one of the most famous operatic arias of all times. The composer drew inspiration from a real incident that had occurred in a Calabrian town, an incident steeped in love and death, which inspired him to write his personal contribution to the new stylistic-aesthetic trends of Italian opera. In the Prologue, Leoncavallo inserted an outright manifesto of Verismo (“real theatre”). His aim was to “paint a scene from real life” and since “the artist is a person, […] he should write for the people. Therefore, he took inspiration from real life.” In the story of Nedda, Tonio and Canio we therefore find a well combined mix of art and reality, operatic theatre and life, with the second almost taking over the first, to the extent that the chorus, towards the end, exclaims, “This scene seems so real!” This production was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in September 2019 and it was acclaimed as a great success by the critics. Conductor Valerio Galli “reads the score with the proper technique, succeeding in enhancing all the various shades for each scene … Pagliacci is conducted with passion… a careful eye to the dramatic development of the story and the sound is rendered with a variety of shades and colors”.

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Death is never far away in Leoš Janácek’s work: in The Cunning Little Vixen, the main character falls under the fire of a hunter, Katia Kabanova kills herself, Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case has to deal with the hard consequences of eternal youth. From the House of the Dead makes no exception, especially since the composer knew he was living out his final days when he decided to adapt into an opera Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s eponymous novel, a literary work inspired by the time the novelist spent in a Siberian prison. This painful feeling of ineluctability pervades through his disillusioned and savage score, that recounts the hopeless life of the convicts of a Soviet concentration camp. In this place where life has already drawn out, in this no man’s land forsaken by civilization, Janácek portrays the anonymous and daily sufferings, the abuses, the corporal punishments, but also evokes fragments from the prisoners’ past, bringing them back to life for the duration of a game or of a story. Against this background that contrasts the empathic solidarity of simple men with the horrific brutality of the prison guards, stage director Frank Castorf - who created a memorable Ring Cycle in Bayreuth for the Wagner Bicentennial in 2013 - embraces the aesthetics of grotesque and absurd suggested by Janácek’s score, and chooses to crudely display, with stark realism, the physical and psychological violence at the heart of the opera. In the pit, conducting the house orchestra, Simone Young underlines the power plays and the overwhelming lyricism unleashed by Janácek’s music. As the main protagonists, Peter Rose, Charles Workman and Bo Skhovus, all familiar with Janácek’s subtleties, bring back to life these agonizing anti-heroic characters forsaken by God and men.

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Premiered on May 21st, 1892 at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, Pagliacci was immediately a huge success, and today it’s Leoncavallo’s most represented operas as “Vesti la giubba” is perhaps one of the most famous operatic arias of all times. The composer drew inspiration from a real incident that had occurred in a Calabrian town, an incident steeped in love and death, which inspired him to write his personal contribution to the new stylistic-aesthetic trends of Italian opera. In the Prologue, Leoncavallo inserted an outright manifesto of Verismo (“real theatre”). His aim was to “paint a scene from real life” and since “the artist is a person, […] he should write for the people. Therefore, he took inspiration from real life.” In the story of Nedda, Tonio and Canio we therefore find a well combined mix of art and reality, operatic theatre and life, with the second almost taking over the first, to the extent that the chorus, towards the end, exclaims, “This scene seems so real!” This production was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in September 2019 and it was acclaimed as a great success by the critics. Conductor Valerio Galli “reads the score with the proper technique, succeeding in enhancing all the various shades for each scene … Pagliacci is conducted with passion… a careful eye to the dramatic development of the story and the sound is rendered with a variety of shades and colors”.

 

REVIEW:

 

This is good, solid, Italianate, passionate singing, notably from the tenor and soprano. The picture is sharp, with subtitles easily found. The sound is crystal clear, bringing out the best of the timpani and brass to good effect. The voices are well to the fore. There is a short extra with the directors discussing the production. For those who like their verismo full-blooded and idiomatically led, this is for you. Highly recommended.

 

– Fanfare (David Cutler)

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Weber’s ‘great heroic-romantic’ opera Euryanthe premiered in Vienna in 1823. It concerns the wronged Euryanthe, victim of a plot to establish her unfaithfulness, but her love imbues her with colossal strength which Weber characterizes with acute psychological insight. Through-composed and dispensing with spoken dialogue, its chivalric plot provides opportunities for a series of arias, ariosos, duets, cavatinas and choruses that contain some of his greatest operatic music. This production employs the opera’s original version with a few, very minor cuts.

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Weber’s ‘great heroic-romantic’ opera Euryanthe premiered in Vienna in 1823. It concerns the wronged Euryanthe, victim of a plot to establish her unfaithfulness, but her love imbues her with colossal strength which Weber characterizes with acute psychological insight. Through-composed and dispensing with spoken dialogue, its chivalric plot provides opportunities for a series of arias, ariosos, duets, cavatinas and choruses that contain some of his greatest operatic music. This production employs the opera’s original version with a few, very minor cuts.

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Distinguished Bach specialist Sir András Schiff returned to the BBC Proms in 2018 to present Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Extending the variety already evident in Book I (available on 2.110653), Bach’s effortless brilliance and new-found sonorities push harmony and counterpoint further than ever with a combination of ancient and modern styles, church austerity and gallant lightness. Schiff has said that ‘no-one combines the sacred and the secular as Bach does’, and this is comprehensively demonstrated in Bach’s fascinating and challenging sequence. This performance in the Royal Albert Hall was described as ‘a musical meditation for our troubled times’ by the Independent.

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REVIEW:

Last month I mentioned how astonishing it was that András Schiff performed Bach’s entire Well-Tempered Klavier, Book I, at the 2017 BBC Proms completely from memory. Now there’s Schiff’s playing Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, at the 2018 BBC Proms, and — if it’s even possible—it’s even more incredible that, once again, Schiff plays the entire 140-minute work from memory. Bach’s preludes and variations are enough to tax any pianist, but Schiff plays one of our greatest composers’ greatest works with artistry and graceful calm. Hi-def video and audio are excellent.

– The Flipside

The lavish princely entertainments that were given in Italy since the Renaissance, and in particular at the Medici Court in Florence, were famous throughout Europe. The musical interludes that adorned them were already true dramatic masterpieces which marvelously combined music and poetry. They set a frame for the birth of the Italian Opera, Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) being their direct heir with its almost perfect architecture, the depth of its expression and the immanent beauty of its music. In a state of grace, Raphaël Pichon invites you to discover these Italian splendors, by imagining a princely interlude conceived with the most sumptuous pieces of music of the turn of the 1600s that is both true opera scenes but also gigantic polychoral pieces for thirty voices. All of them filmed here in the most beautiful palatial Gallery in the World: namely, we invite you on a dreamlike musical journey in the Hall of Mirrors of the Château de Versailles.

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Natalia Makarova’s acclaimed production of this 19th-century classic ballet brings an exotic world of temple dancers and noble warriors to life. Featuring opulent sets by Pier Luigi Samaritani and beautiful costumes by Yolanda Sonnabend, it stars Marianela Nuñez as the Bayadère (temple dancer) Nikiya, Vadim Muntagirov as Solor, and Natalia Osipova as Gamzatti, whose alluring presence challenges Solor’s love for Nikiya. La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) was originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. The ballet was staged especially for the benefit performance of the Russian Prima ballerina Ekaterina Vazem, who created the principal role of Nikiya. From the first performance the ballet was universally hailed by contemporary critics as one of the choreographer Petipa's supreme masterpieces, particularly the scene from the ballet known as The Kingdom of the Shades, which became one of the most celebrated pieces in all of classical ballet.

In Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, the violin does not allow itself a break, continually tells it's dark story, revolves around the same thoughts, jokes and mocks, stutters, gets into the vicious circle of ostinato Passacaglia bass lines, loses itself in the loneliness of the extended cadenza and again and again falls into beguilingly beautiful singing. The Stalin regime would not have missed the fact that although a great many things run in small circles here, nothing "runs smoothly", which is why the premiere did not take place until 1955, after Stalin's death. Peter Tchaikovsky initially thought his "Symphony of Fate" was a failure and believed himself to be at the end of his creative powers. The audience's enthusiasm for the work grew with each performance. It was probably the composer's nature, plagued by self-doubt, that made it almost impossible for him to develop a self-confident attitude to his own creative power. This recording of the 5th Symphony is another milestone in Andris Nelson's Tchaikovsky cycle with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

The Beethoven cycle of the 21st century! Christian Thielemann’s and Wiener Philharmoniker’s recording of BEETHOVEN 9 had been their first recording in HD of all nine Beethoven symphonies, accompanied by nine hour-long documentaries, one on each symphony, featuring Thielemann and Prof. Joachim Kaiser. From insights into Beethoven’s musical thinking to interpretational comparisons, including excerpts from performances by Karajan, Böhm, Bernstein, Järvi etc., to historical perspectives – no aspect of Beethoven’s symphonic oeuvre will remain untreated! “Thielemann’s recordings of the Beethoven symphonies stand head and shoulders above the countless and mostly undistinguishable versions on offer.“ (Die Presse) “The Vienna Philharmonic literally grew beyond itself that evening in the Konzerthaus.“ (Neue Züricher Zeitung) Missa Solemnis: Thielemann “conjured up the gigantic cosmos of the Missa with such lightness and grace that its mystery seemed to reveal itself.“ (FAZ)

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The contemporary face of The Royal Ballet is shown in works from three of today's leading choreographers. Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour is based around seven couples separating and intermingling, to music by Vivaldi and Ezio Bosso and lit with the rich colours suggested by sunset. In Flight Pattern, Crystal Pite combines Górecki's haunting “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” with a large dance ensemble to create a poignant and passionate reflection on migration. Between them, Medusa is new work inspired by the Greek myth, created for The Royal Ballet by the acclaimed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which juxtaposes Purcell arias with an electronic score by Olga Wojciechowska.

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The contemporary face of The Royal Ballet is shown in works from three of today's leading choreographers. Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour is based around seven couples separating and intermingling, to music by Vivaldi and Ezio Bosso and lit with the rich colours suggested by sunset. In Flight Pattern, Crystal Pite combines Górecki's haunting “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” with a large dance ensemble to create a poignant and passionate reflection on migration. Between them, Medusa is new work inspired by the Greek myth, created for The Royal Ballet by the acclaimed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which juxtaposes Purcell arias with an electronic score by Olga Wojciechowska.

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The impossible love between a human prince and a swan princess, tragic fates, the constant opposition between imagination and reality: these are the core elements of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Profoundly classical, Valery Kovtun’s version for the Ballet of the National Opera of Ukraine is an homage to Tchaikovsky’s talent, but also to Marius Petipa’s timeless heritage. As in the original libretto, this Swan Lake ends with the two main character’s death, drowned into the lake’s tears. But evil is overpowered by love, and in the final apotheosis, Odette and Siegfried are forever united in a world of perfect harmony. A first-class company, the Ballet Company of the National Opera of Ukraine has toured all around the world: from the United States to Europe and Asia. Thanks to its rich classical heritage, the Company has managed to win the hearts of its audience thanks to its amazing technique and artistic maestria, and as in every good dance company, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. The Company has also, over the years, established itself as a unique talent pool, that has nurtured first class dancers such as Iana Salenko (Staatsballet Berlin), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet), Maxim Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko (American Ballet Theater); and the young gifted dancers that make the Ballet’s reputation ensure the preservation of the classical heritage of this historical and world-renowned company.

The impossible love between a human prince and a swan princess, tragic fates, the constant opposition between imagination and reality: these are the core elements of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Profoundly classical, Valery Kovtun's version for the Ballet of the National Opera of Ukraine is an homage to Tchaikovsky's talent, but also to Marius Petipa's timeless heritage. As in the original libretto, this Swan Lake ends with the two main character's death, drowned into the lake's tears. But evil is overpowered by love, and in the final apotheosis, Odette and Siegfried are forever united in a world of perfect harmony. A first-class company, the Ballet Company of the National Opera of Ukraine has toured all around the world: from the United States to Europe and Asia. Thanks to it's rich classical heritage, the Company has managed to win the hearts of it's audience thanks to it's amazing technique and artistic maestria, and as in every good dance company, the whole is equal to the sum of it's parts. The Company has also, over the years, established itself as a unique talent pool, that has nurtured first class dancers such as Iana Salenko (Staatsballet Berlin), Alina Cojocaru (Royal Ballet), Maxim Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko (American Ballet Theater); and the young gifted dancers that make the Ballet's reputation ensure the preservation of the classical heritage of this historical and world-renowned company.

Florence, May 2nd, 1589: on occasion of the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I and Christina of Lorraine an impressive celebration apparatus was put up to display the magnificence of the Medici household. Behind this official event lay an ambitious project which involved an incredible team of the most important poets and musicians of the time, such as Cristofano Malvezzi, Luca Marenzio, Giulio Caccini, Jacopo Peri, Emilio De’ Cavalieri as well as Count Giovanni De’ Bardi, who was engaged to compose the Intermedi for Girolamo Bargagli’s play La Pellegrina. Renaissance intermediums were sumptuous musical interludes inserted between the acts of a theatrical show on allegorical and moral themes with eclectic references to classical mythology. They are considered as the forerunners of musical opera. The spectacular show, which was performed using a complex stage machinery set up in Palazzo Pitti’s Boboli gardens, was an immediate success, so much that the intermediums were performed in the days to follow during another two plays. The Six intermediums in La Pellegrina provide for choral madrigals, double and triple choirs, solo accompanied numbers and instrumental pieces, inserted into the impressive and sumptuous staging by Bernando Buontalenti. 430 years later, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in collaboration with Galleria Degli Uffizi produces the first staging in modern times of the Intermedi della Pellegrina through an itinerant show in Palazzo Pitti’s Boboli Gardens. Stage director Valentino Villa’s approach was to “attempt at an ironic historical reconstruction, [where] imageries blur together, classical mythology is grafted onto contemporary iconography”. Conductor Federico Maria Sardelli leads Modo Antiquo and Chorus Master Alberto Allegrezza is at the head of Coro Ricercare Ensemble and Compagnia Dramatodìa.

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Johann Sebastian Bach was undoubtedly the greatest musical thinker of his age. Dubbed ‘the Old Testament of music’ by the conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow, the Well-Tempered Clavier is acknowledged to be one of the most significant works ever written for the keyboard. Each of these 24 preludes and fugues encapsulates its own mood, and Bach’s delight in mixing technical strictness with freedom of expression has made this work an indispensable element of Western culture for centuries. Sir András Schiff is heralded as one of the finest Bach interpreters today, and this first complete performance at the prestigious BBC Proms was summed up as ‘stupendous’ by The Independent.

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REVIEW:

That he played the one hundred and ten minutes of the First Book from The Well-Tempered Clavier from memory was a feat in itself; that he played it without a blemish was remarkable, and that he imbued it with such happiness was something to remember. Played without an interval, and with both feet firmly planted on the stage, we come as near to Bach’s harpsichord as you can get from a modern Steinway concert grand piano.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The resounding success Handel’s Messiah encountered the first time it was presented in Dublin in 1742 set the scene for its future. The oratorio depicts the Sacred History of Christ in three parts: the Nativity, Christ’s Passion and Resurrection and finally, Redemption. The alternance of airs and choirs is perfect and Handel’s musical knowledge infallible. Messiah quickly became the composer’s most successful work. It was played thirty-six times during his lifetime and has continued to be presented to modern day, embodying just how majestic and sublime music can be. During its première in London, King George II was so moved by the mythical Hallelujah! that he could not help but leap to his feet, with the entire audience following his lead. In the sumptuous Royal Chapel at Versailles, Hervé Niquet leads four impassioned soloists and a tremulous choir to the height of Handel’s most resplendent baroque edifice!

Soprano Ermonela Jaho stars as Violetta Valery, with Charles Castronovo as her lover Alfredo and Placido Domingo as Alfredo’s stern father Giorgio Germont, in The Royal Opera’s much-loved production of Verdi’s La traviata. One of the greatest of all operas, La traviata is based on the novel and play La Dame aux camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils, inspired in turn by the life and death of the real Parisian courtesan, Marie Duplessis. The opera tells the profoundly moving story of a courtesan prepared to sacrifice everything for love, and contains some of Verdi’s most beautiful arias and duets. Richard Eyre’s engrossing naturalistic production features stunning designs by his regular collaborator Bob Crowley. Italian conductor Antonella Manacorda conducts Verdi’s sublime score, which offers a wonderful showcase for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and Royal Opera Chorus.

Un mari à la porte ( A Husband at the Door) is a one-act operetta which was recorded at the Teatro del Maggio in occasion of the 200th anniversary of Offenbach’s birth. Premiered in 1859, this rarely performed work is a most amusing comedy of errors, which is the typical frameset that the composer used to represent and mock the quirks and vices of the French society of his times. The action takes place in Susanne’s bedroom, on her wedding night. She is in company of her friend Rosita, with whom she complains about having just found out about her husband’s bad character, that she decides to punish and leave outside the door. Rosita tries to soothe her naive friend and eventually leaves. While alone, the bride realizes that there’s a man hidden under the bed. It’s Florestan Ducroquet, a young and penniless musician, who had broken into the room falling from the chimney, while escaping from the fury of a jealous husband. Rosita joins the pair in the room as Henry, the groom, is waiting outside the door pleading to come in, yet thinking the two friends are pulling a prank on him. Finally the intruder manages to flee from the window, seconds after having proposed to Rosita. Order is restored and love triumphs over all. This carefree play of allusions and misunderstandings is accompanied by the brilliant music of Offenbach that moves gracefully to the rhythm of dance: polka, mazurka and especially waltz. The strong points of this production are indeed the colorful, flamboyant setting and costumes and the amazing acting ability of all four singers, who have the audience laugh with sheer delight.

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With Shakespearian operas all the rage in Paris during the 19th century, Ambroise Thomas and his librettists Michel Carre and Jules Barbier adapted Hamlet to create a romantic spectacle in which the character of Ophelie shines with a haunting radiance. With its virtuosic arias, stunning ensembles and vivid orchestration – with the colourful addition of the newly invented saxophone – Thomas composed one of the most successful operas in the French repertoire. This is further enhanced by director Cyril Teste’s multi-layered production, reinstating its powerful original ending, and including cinematic techniques to create ‘a very palpable hit’ (bachtrack.com).